


The Boy in the Window

by ChipAndDealer



Category: RWBY
Genre: But I'm a crackshipper so sue me, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friendship, Could be read as Pre-Sunscreen, Episode: v01e15 The Stray, Episode: v01e16 Black and White, Gen, It's a kind of silly idea, Young Sun, Young Weiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22616077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipAndDealer/pseuds/ChipAndDealer
Summary: Weiss moved over to her window and peered out, taking note of the sheer drop. "You climbed up here?" She left the unspoken question of 'how?' as it was.Sun nodded, leaning out beside her and pointing to a thin ledge, then a series of balconies and handholds that couldn't reasonably be considered a climbing path, yet clearly were. "It wasn't that much different from the climbing I usually do around town, besides the fence outside being a bit extreme. I would have kept going, but yours was the first window unlocked. I didn't even know there were any kids here, you've seriously lived here all along?"
Relationships: Weiss Schnee & Sun Wukong
Kudos: 18





	The Boy in the Window

Weiss Schnee, second in line to inherit the Schnee Dust Company, musical prodigy, and collector of Barny Beanie stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes, sulked in her room.

Her scroll had been taken away, and she wasn't quite desperate enough yet to turn to her study books for entertainment. This in-between state, had left the girl of barely eight unutterably, inescapably, "bored." She cried to the empty room.

She heard a creaking, scraping sound, and turned to the door, expecting Winter to come see her, or maybe a tutor to begin some impromptu lesson her father had ordered, but was more than a little surprised to see her window open instead, and downright shocked to see a messy head of blonde hair stick through it and fall into her room with a thump.

She was going to scream, but she remembered Winter telling her how Schnee's should never raise their voice, but maintain an imperious aura of unassailability. She didn't remember those exact words, but the idea came across, so she clamped a hand over her mouth before any sound could escape it.

The little boy, as far as she could distinguish, rolled over and looked up at her, cracking a toothy grin. It could probably have been toothier, as he seemed to be missing several near the front, but Weiss thought the description fit, nonetheless.

He had tanned skin, clothes that seemed to be more tear than fabric in places, and most curiously for Weiss, a long brown tail, that seemed to flick around as he moved.

"What are you doing in my room?" She whispered shrilly. She considered for a moment, then asked. "And who are you, for that matter?"

The boy stood up, and dusted off his faded jeans, an action which seemed only to draw the dust within to the surface, then he shoved his hand toward Weiss, the grin never leaving his face. "Sun Wukong. You live here?"

She shook his hand, like she was taught, but quickly regretted it when hers ended up covered in dirt. She looked down at her discolored hand with distaste, then remembered that she wasn't alone and turned back to Sun. "W-Weiss Schnee." She inwardly cursed her stutter. She could have sworn her instructors had trained that out of her years ago. "And yes, I live here. This is the ill-" she screwed her face in concentration, "the illus-" she bit her lip, trying to remember, "the illustrous house of Schnee." She said, satisfied.

She wasn't sure she said it completely correctly, but it wasn't like Sun knew the word, so she was confident he wouldn't correct her.

He sat down on his haunches in a squatting gesture and looked around the room, his tail coming up to scratch his head. "If you live here, why don't you go to school?"

Weiss sat down on the end of her bed, her fear from earlier now totally forgotten. "My da-father," she corrected herself, "says that 'schools are a system for keeping lower classes in check' and he says the tutors he picks out for me can teach me more than everyone in schools knows put together."

Sun stood up, pushing his face right up next to hers. "Wow, so you don't have to go to school at all? Lucky."

"What happens at school?" She asked , curiously.

Sun shrugged, moving next to her on the bed and folding his legs in front of him. "It's a lot of grownups telling you where to go, and where to sit, and you can't stand or move around while they go on and on about stuff not even they care about. Then they test you to see if you were paying attention, and if you weren't you have to do the same thing again and again until you get it right. There is recess, though, and that's pretty fun."

Weiss tried picturing it in her head, but all she saw was herself during her own studies. "It sounds like my tutors."

Sun frowned, empathetically. "Guess you can't escape it completely, huh?"

"What is recess?" Weiss asked, trying to remember if she'd heard it before. She didn't think she had, and she'd heard a lot of words that most other people didn't know.

Sun got excited as he explained. "Well recess is when they let you outside about halfway through the day onto all the playground stuff, and there are jungle gyms, and kickball, and Neptune."

Weiss began to suspect Sun was making up some of these words. She could identify jungles, and heard of gyms, she knew what balls were and what a kick was, but she didn't know what it meant together, and while she knew what a tune was, she had no idea what a 'nep' could be. "What is a nep-tune?" She asked.

"Who is a Neptune." Sun gently corrected. "He's a buddy of mine. I wanted to climb up here with him, but his mom got him doing yardwork for the Greenes."

Weiss moved over to her window and peered out, taking note of the sheer drop. "You climbed up here?" She left the unspoken question of 'how?' as it was.

Sun nodded, leaning out beside her and pointing to a thin ledge, then a series of balconies and handholds that couldn't reasonably be considered a climbing path, yet clearly were. "It wasn't that much different from the climbing I usually do around town, besides the fence outside being a bit extreme. I would have kept going, but yours was the first window unlocked. I didn't even know there were any kids here, you've seriously lived here all along?"

"All my life." Weiss considered. "It is a bit boring."

Sun stood and tried to strike an impressive pose, his short stature and disheveled nature creating the opposite effect. "Hey, you're standing in the presence of Sun Wukong; as long as I'm here, nothing should be boring."

Weiss smiled up at him, hopefully. "Promise?"

Her door creaked as it was unlocked and Winter walked in, frowning. Weiss couldn't resist a shiver as the cold from the rest of the house flooded into her pleasantly warm room. "Weiss, I..." she trailed off, her eyes moving around the room before re-centering on her. "Who were you speaking with?"

Weiss turned toward where Sun was standing, seeing neither hide nor hair of the precocious boy. A glance down at the rug showed the dirt where he'd brushed his pants off, and her eyes flicked over to the open window he must have escaped through. She turned back toward Winter. "I... no one, Winter. Just myself."

She raised an eyebrow and stared for a moment, before nodding. "Very well. Please try to keep that to a minimum, though." Her expression softens. "I know how lonely it can get here, but if father heard you..." she trailed off, her gaze far away, and shook her head. "Never mind. Just try not to, alright?"

Weiss nodded, agreeably. "I will, Winter."

Winter looked as though she wanted to say something else, then thought better of it and turned to go.

Weiss took a step forward, arm outstretched. "Hey, Winter?"

She paused, looking back. "Yes, Weiss?"

Weiss let her arm drop to her side, as she bit her lip, trying to phrase the question correctly. "People with animal parts... they are Faunus, correct?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Yes, Weiss. Why do you ask?"

"Do any of them have tails?" Weiss asked quietly, her eyes drifting to the window.

Winter considered the question, her eyebrows furrowing. "I suppose they must, some of them. What brings this up?"

"Can I learn more about them?" Weiss put her hands together in front of her face and bowed her head. "Please?"

Winter's face was an expressionless mask. "I'll... let your tutors know." She said, after a minute.

"Thank you, Winter." Weiss sighed, gratefully.

Winter closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her mask cracking for a moment to let concern slide across her face. Faunus already? It couldn't be. Weiss wasn't ready to learn about the Faunus War, or the White Fang. Not yet. Not so soon. Maybe she would forget. Maybe Winter could just wait it out.

She shook her head. There was no chance of that. Weiss' memory was surprisingly sharp, especially for something she wanted to learn more about.

A servant passed, and Winter's mask slipped on again, like water over ice. Weiss wanted to learn about Faunus, and she would. That was the end of it.

She only hoped Weiss would forgive her for it.

_/\\_

To Weiss Schnee, Heiress to the Schnee Dust Corporation, huntress in training, and unofficial second in command to team RWBY, life was surprisingly simple.

Her plan for the future amounted to not much more than, win the Vytal Tournament, graduate Beacon, prove her father completely wrong, and become the greatest huntress Remnant had ever known.

From the young heiress' perspective, so far so good.

She stood at the docks, with her team, defending herself from baseless accusations of 'just wanting to see the competition' while they waited so that she could see the competition.

That is, so she could greet them.

Sure. That one.

Her team was laughing, the boat was approaching. Everything was going so well until she saw him. All it took was a glance at that golden hair and monkey tail and she was eight years old again, grounded for some foolishness long since forgotten. His name had faded from her memories, but his presence had not.

That he should be there, in Vale, now, the odds were so low as to be nearly impossible.

He jumped from the ship, shouting back at the sailors, and Yang said something in her ear Weiss didn't even try listening to.

"Quick, we have to observe him." The words left her mouth of their own accord, unbidden by her mind or thoughts.

Her team gave chase, but lost him in the crowd, it was only an unfortunate incident with an orange haired young girl that forced Weiss to break off the hunt.

Weiss went through the 'conversation', if it could be called that with Penny, half her mind still preoccupied on that faunus. Why did she even care? He didn't even look at her, it was probably just some random monkey faunus. Despite what some said, Weiss could tell faunus apart. She was just jumping at shadows now and...

Did Penny say she was here for the tournament?

"If you're here for the tournament, does that mean you know that monkey-tailed rapscallion?" Weiss asked eagerly. A name, that was all she needed. Just a name would tell her if she was wrong or not, if this was her mind playing tricks on her or that gap toothed eight year old plunged into her life again.

Penny took a step back, surprised at Weiss' sudden interest. "The who?"

Weiss' face fell.

Useless.

She gave a frustrated groan. "The filthy faunus from the boat." She cried, exasperated.

"Why do you keep saying that?" Blake butted in.

Weiss turned, annoyed. She shouldn't be here. This girl was clearly not going to help, and the longer they talked, the farther that faunus got. "Huh?"

Blake gave her a dark glare, forcing Weiss back a step. Her quiet teammate had never been what Weiss would call 'friendly' to her, but she'd at least kept civil. This type of anger was something she wasn't used to dealing with. "Stop calling him a rapscallion. Stop calling him a degenerate. He's a person."

Weiss' own anger flared. This was a waste of time, and more than that, none of Blake's business. Why did she care? "Oh, I'm sorry." She said, her voice thick with sarcasm. "Would you like me to stop referring to the trash can as a trash can, or this lamppost as a lamppost?"

They devolved into a pointless argument, that lasted so long Weiss could barely remember its beginning.

Now, she was alone.

The faunus was gone.

Her team was gone.

Blake was gone.

And just like her childhood, she was left in her room, abandoned to her inner thoughts.

She heard a creak, and turned to the door, certain it was going to be another lecture from Yang, but her window opened instead, and like a fantastical spirit, the faunus tumbled into her room just like the first time they met. Everything from the part of his hair to the curl of his tail was so exactly the same that Weiss couldn't take it.

She started to laugh.

She laughed until her cheeks ached and her sides hurt, clutching her stomach in a vain attempt to get more air as her hysterical laughter filled the small room.

The faunus stood, awkwardly clutching an arm as he waited for her to finish, his eyes darting to the door so he could get some warning before campus security inevitably came knocking.

After a few minutes, Weiss eventually calmed down and with a few shaky breaths, turned to the faunus again. "Please tell me you're real, and I haven't completely snapped."

"I don't know if you've snapped." He said, sitting crosslegged on the ground and extending his tail to poke her leg. "But I'm real."

Weiss shook her head. "How? Why? I mean... it's been years."

"The tournament, just like pretty much everyone else." Was his easy reply. "Why did you start locking your window?" He asked, quietly.

Weiss looked away. "I was... scared."

"Of what?" He said, spreading his arms in exasperation. "Neptune? I told you he was cool, and you didn't even get to meet him."

She closed her eyes. "The White Fang."

"Just because I'm a faunus? Come on, Weiss. You should know better than that." Sun huffed.

"I was eight." She defended.

"I talked to Blake." He countered. "It's almost a decade later and you're still making the same mistakes."

"I don't even know her that well." Weiss tried to justify. "We've only been on a team for-"

"I climbed through that window and hung out with you almost every day for months. Neptune's mom was wondering if she should start forwarding my mail. You knew me, Weiss, and you shut me out anyway." Sun shook his head in disappointment. "What chance did Blake have?"

Sun turned to the window and leapt out, swinging off windowsills and trees until he finally hit the ground.

"Sun, wait." Weiss called, running to the window. "Where are you going?"

"To make things interesting." Sun called, cupping his hands over his mouth. "I made a promise."

He ran out in the direction of Vale, and Weiss hurried to get dressed. She was just pulling her boots on when Yang walked in. "Weiss, I know this thing with Blake is weird, but we have to find her."

Weiss nodded, hopping on one foot to put her second boot on. "Yes, Yang. You're absolutely right. Let's go out into Vale and start looking immediately."

Yang raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Right now?"

Weiss pulled her out the door. "Now now."

If Weiss ever had any reason to doubt it, Sun was true to his word. Fighting Roman Torchwick and multiple bullheads worth of White Fang criminals was definitely interesting.

How exactly he had found said master thief and terrorist operation was far beyond anything Weiss could easily guess at.

How Ruby and the Polendina girl stopped them when Blake and Sun couldn't was an explanation she would get from Ruby later, and she would get it.

In any case, the danger was passed, the robbery was foiled, and everyone was reasonably unharmed.

The question of whether they would be after Weiss had gotten to them was still up in the air.

Blake walked toward her, starting to explain whatever she assumed her misdeeds were.

"I don't care." Weiss stated, flatly.

Blake looked shocked, which was just another testament to how little the former terrorist knew her. "You don't care?"

Weiss sighed, ignoring the ache in her legs. After running around Vale for hours looking for Blake and Sun she was truly exhausted. "You said you're not one of them anymore, right?"

Blake shook her head, still caught off guard. "No. I haven't been since I was younger-"

Weiss cut her off. "Ahbababa, I don't want to hear it." The less Blake said to her right now, the better. "All I want to know is that the next time something this big comes up, you'll come to your teammates and not some..." some specter of Weiss' unpleasant past? "Someone else." She said, looking at Sun.

He gave a cheery wave back.

"Of course." Blake said, gratefully, looking the closest Weiss had ever seen her to considering physical contact.

Weiss gave a nod, smiling, as she let her shoulders sag just slightly with the weariness she was postponing her surrender to.

Ruby waved her arms like a maniac, prompting Weiss to wonder just how she still had energy left. "Yeah, team RWBY is back together." She announced to the benefit of no one.

Her team moved closer and Sun followed after a moment. Weiss' eyes narrowed and she jabbed a finger in his direction. He somehow dragged Blake into trouble, but kept her from getting hurt. He dropped in out of nowhere, but she still remembered him fondly from her childhood, which as events in her childhood went, put him in a stark minority. He was a proven criminal, who also got Weiss out of her sulking to go into Vale and find Blake. He was so familiar, and so strange at the same time. "I'm still not quite sure how I feel about you."

He gave a nervous laugh. Explanations would be forthcoming at a later date, she'd make sure of that.

Ruby asked after her missing friend, and Weiss dutifully ignored her. The location of miss Polendina qualified under the 'none of her business' section of Weiss' brain at that time of night, at that level of exhaustion.

She was here for the tournament, after all. She'd turn up.

Which meant Sun would stick around as well.

Weiss suddenly felt as if her life grew much more complicated.


End file.
